Judah's Car Caddy

I have been spending time on line lately looking for fun ideas for the kids to do in the van or things for them to play with in the van. We are planning summer holidays away for the first time in five years. We are looking forward to them, but there will be lots of driving involved in the two weeks and I want the kids to not drive each other or me up the wall (or off the road). What you are going to see in the next month or so are some of the projects I have found online to make for the kids. The first one is a car caddy for Judah. I found this idea on Jill's website and knew that it would be just the thing for my little guy. I made a few changes to it as normal and thought it might be fun to show you guys. It was surprisingly easy to make. I finished it in less than a day.

 

First I cut out two pieces of fabric 18' x 15'. One for the front and one for the back. Then a piece 18' x 6'. I folded the third piece of material in half length-wise and ironed it. Then I lined it up with the bottom of the front piece of material and sewed it on.

I drew lines on the fabric 3' apart. And then sewed down those lines to make my car pockets. I actually sewed over these lines three times because I knew that Judah would probably be a little rough on the pockets pulling the cars in and out.

When doing crafts in our house it is always helpful to have Mark around. He was actually home for the day and because there was snow on the ground and he couldn't do any yard work I recruited him to draw me some roads. Mark drew the roads on the back on some two-sided iron-on fusing. Then you iron that to the material, cut on your lines for the road and peel off your paper backing. Clear as mud right??

Then came the job of sewing around the road to attach it to the material. I used a blanket stitch around the outside.

The road looked like this. And that's when Judah and Mark decided that the project needed some extra decorations to make it more fun.

 

So I appliqued yellow lines around the road and a finish line for the racers. Mark dug through our old playmobile toys and stole the gas pump end he found. (We don't have the gas station anyways so it was a little bit useless) We attached the gas pump to a shoelace hose and sewed it securely behind a gas pump. Judah needed an impact gun and wrench as well, so Mark made an air compressor too.

Then I switched to finishing the back side. I added a piece of green material to hold the caddy closed and placed a button in the center of the bottom.

Jill's original caddy was made out of denim but I didn't have any material like that in the house. I was concerned that my light cotton material would not make the caddy firm enough to play on in the van. So I sprayed some glue on the back of my road piece and added a piece of cotton batting I had left over from the last quilt project I made. 

Then I put the right sides of my font and back piece together, pinned them and then sewed them together with a 1/4 inch seam. I also cut my corners so that I could turn it well. Remember when sewing the front to the back to leave about 3 - 4 inches at the top open. You will then have to turn the material inside out so that you can see the front of the roads again. 

After turning the material inside out pin the hole at the top together and then sew all the way around the outside of your caddy. Again about a 1/4 of an inch from the edge. 

Then I sewed two horizontal lines down the material so that I could be folded neatly into thirds.

Almost done!!!

I tucked six cars into bed. 

Folded the top third down 

And down again

Then you fold 1/3 of it over to the left.

And fold the other third over. After that you can wrap your material around to close the caddy and button it up using the button. (Did I mention I added a button hole to that material, because I did)

And there you have it a finished car caddy for Judah. Tomorrow I'm hoping to make one similar for some of Aslynn's toys. So check back to see it.